New Two-Year Installation on View Beginning October 11

Artist Dialogue and the Re-creation of a Mithraic Feast set for November 13

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (October 8, 2025) — The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is proud to present Sheila Pepe: When & Where We Rest, a new immersive installation by Brooklyn-based artist Sheila Pepe opening October 11 in the Mezzanine Gallery. On view through September 12, 2027, the exhibition transforms the mezzanine into a communal space for contemplation, gathering, and conversation.

Pepe, a Brooklyn-based artist known for expansive, hand-crafted environments, asks what rest looks and feels like—personally, socially, politically—and who has access to it. Pepe’s installation draws on diverse traditions including religion, sociology, queer theory, the material culture of ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, and the Silk Road.

When & Where We Rest includes a site-specific crochet installation that moves between the mezzanine and the Museum’s entry vestibule, alongside other crocheted and knit works; site-specific Doppelgänger wall drawings, continuing the artist’s long-running series that combines sculptural forms, light, and shadow; recent drawings that reinterpret myth, religion, and selfhood, such as Roman/Etruscan Animals as the Musicians of Bremen (2024) and Self Portrait as Gorgon, as Columbus (2024); furniture and furnishings including Roman camp-style chairs, Song Dynasty-style Chinese sleeping pillows, seating from her ongoing American Bardo series of kneeler-inspired chairs; a site-specific upholstered wainscoting that acts as a built-in pillow; and rubberized flooring that recalls playground surfaces, underscoring the theme of shared, bodily engagement. Together, these elements create a hybrid environment: part domestic lounge, part sacred space, part public forum.

Another key element of the installation is a broadsheet that serves as both a takeaway for visitors and as a visual element of the exhibition, wheat-pasted to a wall. One side of the broadsheet provides an overview of the exhibition, while the other is dedicated to exploring ways of thinking about sleep. Excerpts from Sappho, Walt Whitman, and Salman Rushdie are reflected on and responded to by fellow poets and writers April Bernard, Peg Boyers, Selby Wynn Schwartz, Aliza Wong, Moe Angelos, and Raffaela Silvestri.

Organized by Rachel Seligman, Malloy Curator, in collaboration with the artist, When & Where We Rest is the sixth iteration of the Tang’s mezzanine installation project, offering new possibilities for rest and discourse. Previous project artists are Yvette Molina (2023-2025), Lauren Kelley (2021-2023), Nicole Cherubini (2019-2021), Kamau Amu Patton (2017-2019), and Liz Collins (2015-17).

Featured Event

Dunkerley Dialogue & Mithraic Feast Re-creation
Thursday, November 13, 6 pm
The centerpiece event in the opening weeks of the exhibition is a combination of conversation and feast on Thursday, November 13. The artist Sheila Pepe will be in conversation with Brigitte Keslinke, PhD candidate in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World at the University of Pennsylvania; and Gregory Spinner, Teaching Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College, as part of the Tang’s ongoing Dunkerley Dialogue series. The evening begins with a 6 pm conversation exploring intersections of art, ritual, religion, and rest. In particular, the dialogue will include discussion of the cult of Mithras, a Roman mystery religion in which ritual meals played a central role.

Following the conversation there will be a modern Mithraic feast, with culinary offerings—grilled meat, grains, nut bread, spiced olive oil, and wine—based on the archaeological record. Attendees will be able to further engage in the ideas and the exhibition by sharing food and conversation on the mezzanine.

The program is free and open to all, with ASL interpretation provided. Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele Dunkerley ’80.

About Sheila Pepe

Sheila Pepe is best known for crocheting large-scale, ephemeral installations and sculpture made from domestic and industrial materials. For more than 30 years she has accumulated a family resemblance of works in sculpture/installation/drawing, and other singular and hybrid forms: sometimes drawings that are sculpture, or sculpture that is furniture, fiber works that appear as paintings, and tabletop objects that look like models for monuments, and stand as votives for a secular religion. The cultural sources and the meanings that are intertwined draw from canonical arts of the 20th century, home crafts, lesbian, queer, and feminist aesthetics, 2nd Vatican Council American design, an array of Roman Catholic sources as well as their ancient precedents. The constant conceptual pursuit of Pepe’s research, making, teaching, and writing has been to contest received knowledge, opinions, and taste. Among her recent honors, she is the 2024-25 Henry W. and Marian T. Mitchell Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

About Skidmore College

Founded in 1903, Skidmore College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college of about 2,700 students located in the dynamic town of Saratoga Springs, New York. Consistently ranked as a top liberal arts college by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Forbes, and more, Skidmore has also been recognized for its innovation, value, and sustainability efforts. Skidmore fosters academic and personal excellence — all driven by a belief that Creative Thought Matters. Its comprehensive array of opportunities encompasses more than 40 bachelor’s degree programs, including popular offerings in business, psychology, and the creative and performing arts; competitive NCAA Division III athletics; world-class facilities; and hands-on civic engagement and career development resources.

About the Tang Teaching Museum

The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York’s Capital Region, the Tang’s approach has become a model for college and university art museums across the country — with exhibition programs that bring together visual and performing arts with interdisciplinary ideas from history, economics, biology, dance, and physics, to name just a few. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, and a robust publication and touring exhibition program that extends the museum’s reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum’s award-winning building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of art and ideas. The Museum is open to the public Tuesday–Sunday, noon–5 p.m., with extended hours until 9 p.m. Thursday.